Saturday 7 September 2013

Saving Caesar (almost literally)!

Yesterday was the first day since beginning Caesar's blog that I did not post.  I do have a good excuse though (honestly)!  It involves Caesar almost literally needing to be saved! 

Last night, I needed to go to visit my Grandma.  She's not been very well, suffering from a bad back and I hadn't seen her for a while.  I decided it best to leave Caesar at home with his Kong Wobbler as he does like to have a fuss from her and it's a bit much when she's not feeling good.  Had I listened to the news before I set off, I would have realised how much of a bad idea this really was.

Caesar loves his Kong.
He'd be happy with that for a few hours, I thought.

We set off in good time, leaving Caesar with a Kong Wobbler full of treats.  His tea time was at six, but it was only four when we left.  The journey takes twenty minutes.  "We'll definitely be back for six," I assured Damien as we donned our waterproofs.  The rain was heavy outside.  

As we approached Grandma's house, I caught the travel news.  A list of places hit by flooding.  Roads around my Grandma's were listed as "the only major problem areas."  I'd already passed most of them.  We hit a particularly bad part around two minutes from her house, "this is a bit scary" I said, as I had to move from one side of the road to the other in order to get past the flood.  Actually, I had no idea how bad things were about to get.

By seven, it was fairly evident that getting home was not going to be easy.  Every road we set down led to a dead end.  Until, at one point, I had to try to reverse out of a flood of water.  The man behind me decided to push past and risk it and consequently blew up his engine.  I watched as black smoke poured from his car.  "What about Caesar?"  
I've never seen weather like it!

We leave Caesar at home during the day.  It's taken a long time but he's gradually come round to our leaving and coming back times.  And, touch wood, we've come home to a relatively unscathed house for the last week.  Sitting in the car, feeling completely hopeless, I could only assume what he was doing now.  By eight I was really starting to panic.  It was two hours after tea time and he was still home alone.  The Kong would surely be empty by now.  I made an urgent call to my parents.  "I've left Caesar," I told them, "and I can't get back to him."  I could feel my lip trembling as I spoke.

"Where are you?" came my mum's concerned voice from the other end of the line.  I realised that I was shaking so much I couldn't speak clearly.  "I'm on the bypass."  I tried to say. "There are cars everywhere.  People are getting stuck in the water and I'm too scared to keep going.  Everywhere I go is flooded and I can't get home."  It was true, there seemed to be no roads that would lead me anywhere I needed to go and everywhere I tried to go, cars were turning dangerously in the road.  The more people panicked, the more dangerous the roads seemed to become.  I had followed a treacherous route to get this far and every minute, the flood water was rising.  I doubted that I'd even be able to get home.  My mum finally agreed to prioritise Caesar, despite wanting to rescue us first.  They have a diesel transit van and I hoped that this might cut through the water a little more easily.  "We'll try to get to him," she told me as the radio announced that all roads to the town were now closed.  Unfortunately, when you're halfway down one of them, there's not much you can do.  "If we get there, we'll bring him home with us," she told me.  I agreed shakily.  I wasn't convinced that anyone would be able to get to him tonight.  I imagined him, terrified by the weather and trapped in the house.  What if the house was flooded?  

"Keep going, keep going, keep going," I was now chanting as the car made waves through the deep water.  I ignored the fact that Damien was looking at me with concern as I continued to talk to Myrtle (my car).  My next car is going to be a car that turns into a boat!  Then I won't have all of this to worry about.

Mum and dad arrived to eerie silence.  This is unusual in my house because any visitors are usually initiated into the house by being bowled over by a twenty-five kilogram dog.  They looked around but there was no sign of Caesar.  "CAESAR!" called my dad.  Slowly, Caesar clambered downstairs.  "I don't know what he was doing up there," mum told me nodding towards the stairs.  But that's where he was.  I felt so proud to return home to the house in exactly the same state we'd left it.  Well almost....

Here we are panicking about him.
And what's Caesar doing?

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